Iterative

Check you fit before you apply

• The company must be based in Southeast Asia or have most of its customers there. If neither is true, this accelerator is not the right door, even though it invests across industries.
• Founders must work on the startup full-time. Students and people with another job are not invested in.
• You do not need a degree, a co-founder or traction. You do need to be incorporated before funding is paid, and a Singapore company is recommended.

Pick the right programme

• The Iterative Program is the main route. It is an accelerator that takes equity and charges no programme fee.
• Validate Your Startup Idea is the one programme that was open worldwide. Its 2025 round has closed and a waitlist is open. Join it if you are earlier than the accelerator and have only an idea.
• Startup Academy is free and needs no application.

How applications work

• Applications are open all year and reviewed on a rolling basis. Winter 2027 is the batch currently taking applications.
• Apply early. Iterative says applications that arrive early get more time to be read, and that a rush before a deadline can slow replies.
• The process is an application review, a 30-minute interview with a Venture Partner or the investment team, and a final interview with a General Partner. Bring every co-founder, since Iterative says it invests in the team.
• Expect a reply within about two weeks.
• If you are turned down, you can apply to the next batch. Iterative says it gives detailed feedback to everyone it interviews and that companies that reapply have tended to do better.

What reviewers look for

• Market: does the problem affect many people, and acutely?
• Evidence: is there proof that the problem is real and important?
• Founder: can the founders solve it?
• Show how you have learned and improved over time. Iterative says it values founders who iterate quickly and learn from mistakes.
• If you have already been through another accelerator, expect to be asked what you still need to learn and why that programme did not provide it.

Questions

• Write to hello@iterative.vc.

Iterative is an early-stage venture capital firm that also runs an accelerator for startups in Southeast Asia. Twice a year it admits a batch of companies, invests in them on a post-money SAFE, and works with them for 12 weeks, mostly online. News reports and investor listings describe it as Singapore-based.

How the programme works

The Iterative Program has two batches a year, a Winter batch that runs from February to May and a Summer batch that runs from July to September. Each batch opens with an in-person orientation, which Iterative has held in Bali. Its own pages describe the orientation as three days in some places and four days in others. After that, the rest of the programme is fully remote, so founders stay in their home market.

Every company is paired with a lead partner who has built and scaled a startup. They meet weekly for a one-hour one-to-one session. Every week or two, a group session puts the company in a room with five to eight others from the same batch. Each week a guest speaker, usually a startup founder, talks about what they learned. The last four weeks are a fundraising bootcamp with pitch practice and friendly investor pitches. Around week twelve, the batch pitches at Demo Day to an invite-only audience of investors. During and after the batch, a founder concierge arranges introductions to investors, experts and partners.

Iterative says the batch is the start of a longer relationship. Its community of founders keeps getting advice and introductions after the 12 weeks end, and companies get discounts on software and tools and access to a job board for hiring.

The deal

Iterative invests on a post-money SAFE in return for roughly 10 to 15 percent of the company. It transfers the whole investment when it admits a company, not when the programme starts. It says there are no milestones to meet, no clawbacks and no programme fee. Equity is taken, so this is an investment, not a grant.

Who can apply

The accelerator invests in all industries and says it takes companies at all stages, from a concept that is a few weeks old to a business with real revenue. Solo founders and co-founding teams can both apply. A degree is not required. You do not need to be incorporated to apply, but you need to be incorporated to be funded, and Iterative says it can help you incorporate. A Singapore company is recommended but not required.

Founders must work on the startup full-time. Iterative does not invest in students or people with another job, however few hours they spend on it. Only founders attend interviews and batch events.

The important limit for readers of this site is geography. The company must be based in Southeast Asia or have most of its customers there. Iterative's pages word this slightly differently, one saying the company needs to be based in the region or focused on a market there. India is not named. An Indian startup with no Southeast Asian base or customer market does not fit this accelerator as its pages describe it.

How to apply

Applications are open all year and reviewed on a rolling basis. Applications for the Winter 2027 batch, which runs February to May 2027, are open now. The application page says you can ask for an email reminder a month before the deadline, but it does not state a deadline date.

An application is reviewed by people from the Iterative community and team. If it passes, you have a 30-minute interview with a Venture Partner or someone from the investment team. A positive first interview leads to a final interview with one of the two General Partners. Only one General Partner has to want to invest. Iterative says most applicants hear back within two weeks, and that it gives detailed feedback to everyone it interviews. You can apply once per batch and apply again to the next one.

Other programmes

Iterative has run programmes beyond the main accelerator. Validate Your Startup Idea was a six-week online programme for people with an idea they wanted to test. It was open to anyone in the world, funded the experiments of the founders it accepted, and ran from 15 September to 24 October 2025. That round has closed and the page offers a waitlist. The Iterative Scale Program was a six-week programme for Seed and Series A companies with meaningful annual revenue, run once from 4 November 2025. It has closed, and Iterative says it will announce another only if it plans one.

Iterative also runs Startup Academy, a free learning community with courses, events and resources for founders. In 2023 and 2024 it ran short online courses on validating an idea and on deciding whether to start a startup.

Track record

Iterative says it has run cohorts since 2020 and calls Summer 2026 its 13th batch. Its Summer 2026 Demo Day is scheduled for 14 October 2026, online. Recent batches have been small: it picked 15 startups for Summer 2025 and eight for Winter 2026. Its own pages give different totals for how many companies it has backed, from more than 100 on one page to more than 160 on another, so we do not publish one number.

Contact and careers

Questions can go to the firm's general inbox, hello@iterative.vc. The site lists no postal address. It also has a Careers page and a startup jobs board for the companies it backs.